Sonos Arc Breaks Software Compatibility for Dolby Atmos

Analysis

Sonos has been on an apology tour after announcing that it will be breaking software compatibility with some of its older products, which begs the question: why do it? Sonos has said that “future capabilities” require processing power that products designed a decade ago don’t have. What are these future capabilities? Sonos’s new Arc soundbar offers one of them: Dolby Atmos. (Others are likely to include high resolution music streaming, but Sonos has not confirmed this.)

Dolby Atmos is now common not just on Blu-ray discs, but on the streaming content that consumers were binging even before the world moved indoors to avoid coronavirus. Atmos allows sound designers to place and move sound all around the viewer, which makes content more immersive. This is not subtle, you don’t need to be an enthusiast to appreciate it, and premium soundbars are not competitive without it.

Sonos Arc is an attractively curvy $799 Atmos-enabled soundbar with Alexa or Google Assistant, Apple AirPlay 2, and lots of internal speaker drivers. Those drivers play different channels or different portions of sound depending on the content type and how many additional speakers are in use. This provides a lot of flexibility for consumers to start with the Arc on its own, and then add other Sonos speakers for bass and discrete surround sound over time. The Arc also automatically tunes itself to its placement above or below the TV, whether it is placed on a cabinet or mounted to the wall, and to the room itself.

The Arc replaces the old Playbar in Sonos’ line (as of this writing, still being sold at Costco for $549), and sits alongside the smaller, $399 Beam soundbar. The Beam has been a big seller for Sonos and a trojan horse for starting larger Sonos whole-home audio systems. Setting up the Arc is simple for consumers with a recent-model TV that has an HDMI eARC (Audio Return Channel) port that can pass through Atmos, and who are connecting relatively few components to the TV. The Arc is designed to connect directly to the TV and does not do any HDMI switching. The Arc also lacks an HDMI passthrough port, so if the TV cannot pass Atmos over ARC, the Sonos Arc won’t get an Atmos signal to play (it may still get lesser surround sound). Sonos is prioritizing simplicity, but at the cost of adding complexity to potential customers’ purchase decision. In this case, the Arc won’t work as advertised for most TVs sold just a few years ago. It’s a technical point that could be hard for competitors to articulate, but if they do, they could siphon some business away from Sonos. One other limitation: the Arc supports Dolby Atmos, but not its less successful competitor, DTS:X, which is found on some 4K Blu-ray discs, such as entries in the Despicable Me and Harry Potter franchises.

Pricey for a sounbar with no subwoofer

Even for those buying a new television that has an HDMI eArc port, the Arc's $799 price point is undeniably high for a soundbar. Sound quality on the Arc is likely to justify some of the price premium. Sonos speakers are tuned by famous people who actually tune the product, not just lend their name to the enterprise. Our review unit has not yet arrived, but past experience with Sonos suggests that the Arc will, indeed, sound very good, and not impart false height or ambience that was not encoded in the original mix. (The Arc is unlikely to be the last word in home theater sound quality. Receiver-based 7.4.2 Dolby Atmos surround sound systems, with speakers embedded in the ceiling are going to provide a step up in sound – but that is an entirely different market.)

One key aspect of the the Arc’s sound quality is limited by physics: bass. The Arc’s speaker drivers are relatively small, and no subwoofer is included. Apartment dwellers may be better off without a subwoofer, and people who haven’t had a subwoofer before may not miss it. However, subwoofers are commonly included with soundbars even at prices as low as $129 because low bass is a big part of the sonic impact of action movies and TV series. The Sonos Sub costs an additional $699 by itself, nearly doubling the total system price for an Arc with a Sub to $1500.

Software 2.0 & updated Sub and Five

There is one more consideration, which brings us back to where we started: buying an Arc breaks compatibility with Sonos’ original software. Sonos has not said what percentage of its 10 million households are using original Play:5’s or Amps which cannot be updated to join a network running Sonos 2 software. Sonos did not have much choice: premium soundbars are not competitive without Atmos, and its oldest products were not designed with horsepower headroom that extends forever. The compatibility break is not relevant to consumers new to Sonos and those who have bought Sonos speakers in the past few years, which do support the new software. However, for early Sonos customers with Sonos Amps or Play:5's it's a harder sell. The Arc will need to be walled off with its own Sonos network/app, so why not consider other brands’ soundbars instead?

Sonos is also updating some of the internals on the Sub ($699) and Five ($499) so that they can use the updated software. The Five already sounds terrific so there is no problem with leaving the audio components alone, but it is strange that Sonos did not add far-field microphones and Alexa/Google Assistant support while they were redesigning the processor and radios.

Conclusion

Despite serious system and TV compatibility concerns, a Sonos soundbar with Atmos is extremely appealing to people who might have wanted an Atmos soundbar to go with a recent model TV, would like to tie it into a larger audio system, and either don’t need a subwoofer, or who value the ability to easily add onto the system piecemeal in the future. Techsponential will be testing the Arc on its own and in a variety of surround configurations and will update this report accordingly.

To discuss the implications of this report on your business, product, or investment strategies, contact Avi at avi@techsponential.com or +1 (201) 677-8284.